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17 April 2014

What's not Knott is Knott

Bill Knott was an accomplished, self-deprecating poet who slung many influential lines.

I'm a poet. I write filler for suicide-notes.

Many of his poems had the unassuming title POEM.

I am left with the impression that he was a person who used the crutch of self-deprecation to attract the adoration he so sorely wanted but feebly worked to deflect so as not to appear needy. I lean on that same crutch.

I love poetry, but I only abide a handful of contemporary poets. I appreciate and strive to write poems that have, at least, these two ingredients:

Something for the reader to imagine; and

Some semblance of existential inquiry.

Bill Knott rarely fell short by these criteria. His most personally influential poem is:

POEM

The wind blew a piece of paper to my feet.
I picked it up.
It was not a petition for my death.

This poem is Bill Knott for me.

The title of this post comes from Bill Knott's email handle notknott@gmail.com. Having read his work and having watched him read at the Walker Art Center (circa 1980), I have come to realize:

What's not Knott is Knott.

I'm wistful knowing his work will cease. I knew him through the channel of his published poems. His quirky point of view and brilliant word-smithing influenced what I deem essential in writing.

Following is likely the last poem he wrote. It was published on his blog five days before his death. It reads like a work-in-progress perhaps in need of substantial editing. But fittingly it is another final poem entitled POEM, reproduced in it's entirety:

Friday, March 7, 2014
worksheet , , unfinished draftPOEM
That the acrobat would remain insteadIn the burning hoop rather than completeTheir turn through it is a suspect thought. WhyHalt there in that residual nought wrought,Assault that seary vortex, flarehenge shroud,Round and red as Plath's ovenhead. GhastlySilhouettes of gaslight pervade our past;Kindled images drenched in daguerre, ancientTo the point of banishment when eveningsVanish in a similar coup, v-neck-deep inLoinclothed caverns it's best to hide. AbideMay elapse and they, framed by flames, fall fromThat looped height finale, that halo-holdOn all our eye normally denies. Still,The signal desire to stay locked in suchArsonous arcs is one the circus rocksAgainst each night in its maze of dreams,Replaying the deaths that dared defy this ploy.Is this highjinks all our mountebanks allow:With thrall a ring of fire they marry the dayTo their devious acts and thus are at lastDelivered, severed from its whole, that portraitMomentarily clicked past every portalScorching their soles as they halt there bathedIn that eye whose lashes fry their hair and toesPosing perhaps for the one photo its paradeMaims our streets with, vicious charade whosePromised feats are purely made, not performed.One might imagine it were in the nature to occur.You could conclude this event was more yoursThan nature's tiger tricks extinct already forTheir blessedness, a mock phrase the lecturerFaces lions with, his tamed stallion stoned asThey lean over the podium to watch us winceAt each pick ax throe. That cam contaminatesWhat it captures, bright cages bulge with fetishDivulgences—it freezes trapezes, these barebackRiders, nude knees. They cannot move beyondThis figure, they must die there daily just for fun.Charioted into that charred station, thisStagey stasis verges on the absurd, what a coalCrude farce, though objections to imperfectionAre part of the drama enacted by critics:Obsolete the sole acrobat's illusive tiptoeTeeter that flammable cameo concerns us;How the spotlight is mottled in the star, blotchedBy their performance marring each watched face.Such sight must perpetuate what it soughtOr go astray: but is this status, thisJumpcaught bit what our linear needsTo thwart its deliberately taut onslaught,Swan somersault halted strid-air, though noContinuation of the comedianIn that conflagration could be the trueDisruption, the correct avoidance ofTranscendence: it can't taunt that denouementFX-splendiddy enough, unlike the way one'sLiving beyond their years in splatter orPattern brings fit end to each leapt theft,Though certainly one stalls its engulfment withCurious realms of appalled affrights viz.An astral body coined in light, the vauntTumbler pauses there in their circ de solarAuto da fe, feral fireball our droneMissiles visit hourly to satisfy the spaciousPrey of the ticket window's demands:Why do I care if they burn there in mid airAbandoned by the gruesome need to reachThe applause line, to round the stadium trackRacing for the tape across their chests hurrahWhile victor olympian marathonic greeds gildPost-event. Better calamity for them, theyShould perish publically in clusters of cloudClash fare, the bomb heard posthumously byThe body it shatters. They should explode there;Let them droop like an upside down U fromThat white hot hoop. When Hart Crane sailed throughThe goalposts to win the game for Sodom High inTheir annual grudgematch against GomorrohPrep, he shone for a moment as bright as this,Each stadium cheering his radium. FireworksTo our face must fly the phantom bound pyrewardDrenched daily from raucous Pompeii . . . But askThe acrobat: demand from her/him whetherHovering in that hell is preferable toThe headlong hurl of time: does it protectThe climax from commencement's rash intent,From end and then the only end of end, hails Larkin—You will have seen the sun as a figure standingInside a similar wheel etched enfold, DaVinci's Vitruvian Man. Sustained by hisRefusal pall to ever leave this modest pose,That threshold of gold spits scarring us forThe sacrifice that surely the crowd expects.Inca-high that knife gleams. History buffsConfirm his death and worship none but himPerhaps. Lingering, third-degree, ideal,Some hung circumference of furnaceFestival. Like celebrant EmpedoclesWe prefer an oval entry to eternity,Who saw how perfect circ his volcan rimRose in its apotheosis of form, pureAureate anti-goal, broken so un-conedAnd conjured in its ofference of O.Say it is this incompleteness excites us.If it were closed, if the acrobat acedHer symbiotic roundgame, if the goalWere capable of twinning its beginning gone,Would DadaVinci/VineVanGogh have cheated?Shall we salute, requite, honor, anyHeight which resists summit, disdaining eachUltimate point that might map our madness,Spurning the pursuit of angels who seekPeaks only, dullards pining for the crest'sHoned sharpness of spite, groundsake shed whereWe doctrinaire humans find sync thread inSome secular oriel. Regardless of descentAn actor takes their bow from this windowLit by licking jets as if its footfireSpanned the entire stage, or, thinned to a line,Led tightrope misstep regrets. CirclingWhom is the audience, applauding forCoherence they griddle the enclosureWith incendiary candles whose torch wouldBarbecue them if they dared abandonThat pose their tragic-guarded aspirationsDemand every artist must adopt: don'tBail and save yourself, Rimbaud, show-and-Flambeau, rainbow-scald us till we laugh.We love to see your turn-as-burnout blazedAcross our bluetube skies, your moonRockets die Titanic-wise. Hush-litOrchesta pits await but why would sheNot complete her set, traverse that fieryCore and trudge back safely in center ring;What need too urgent to gratify our slavish engineMoults us in that molten omega motif,Bold bad figure trying to transbolt itself intoPain's pantheon of prancing grindshows filmIlumed, from whom these testy trips descend;When cymbals cling their triumph there, whyDoes artifact elect the Paphos illusion,Scales wept in random arbors, desiccateFlowers whose vase unearthed the breachOf our first kin. Appalled sleep of the sentinalCulminating in twelve o'clock amendments andCelebrations—fixated by laminations ofDexterity: to remain there in that ShadrachShade, that Abednego abyss where taperingGrapes render the host bodied as mould mouth,Incomplete transubstantation of the ashesPromised by such. Exposed to this apotheosisOf the will obeying its stubborn occupationOf the suicide it opposes, how can weRespond when there is no red in the blood toAccent the mime's whiteness that designatesAnd underlines this cry for gore: nonlineageThe liontamer opens each cage hoping toChannel the crossing over of the dice, oddsGods wrestle as stainedglass, angel portholeJacob juggles with and must jettison the privacyOf, because the act must occur in the show:The acrobat could stand there on her gymroomTreadmill encircled by flames in solitude, who'dCare? Publication's scandal is vital, to airOne's immolation's the de rigeur we pay for—Thrown wager against that hazard entrance, he,The exegete costumed in cameo, the cloneOf our circular locket solar island marmoreal,Posited motionless and visual, this principalModel fixation focus of interest and poisedInaction, this cessationpoint where one'sLapidary leap suffers its defiant disgroundingDeath around which cancellations flashAnd norms occur: in the tethered fire of itsIncompatibility may we see this evanescentForeign frontier erasure all ways the farer flies—A cat would not sit in that hot that long.Maybe only Bartleby can understandThis arch refusal to honor the task andGo through the hole that enters the stale turnstileOf success, to land standing amid acclaimsLess receptive than those flames that clapped usRife for the briefest of blinks, captivatedSpellbound, gaining that acme game whose contestOur feebleness would bear the better of,Wear its caesura more purely. What suspensionIn the poet's portrayal of silence, rudeInterruption of the spectacle by this perchedEcstasy of decline, musing the stoopstanceOf routine, elevating its spasm comically—The tragic transport is empty (Holderlin)—Barren, contradictory, purgatorial,Pause unconnected, discontiguous coup,Bridge-span the bride's threshold bloodied withLiminal costumes of grief. Who repudiatesIn spite of himself the gulf between this lossOf trajectory in a space wagered by weight,A grace of phases borne now by the citizenBrow, laurel yearning from emerging light toObserve their whole depleted origin, scald-versionDisplacing this usurpation of a courseReserved for lustral berth. Acro is a stand-inSyncly for the hearth whose gate waits toConsume this fence-sitter, unwilling arbiterLoathe to choose which of their substitutedPhoenix-eyeflicks can span this whirlicueIf only to escape the eternal bracing it takesThat cut-out coin to fix cold within spaceA corpus collage, practicing whose personae—Unanimously deformed, incessantly lazy,Beyond seen clearly, veils cleaved, as whenYour nape dawns for the headsman's axe andHe spits to make its split-edge shine sharperFor every arctic-pitted spectator—Investing the forsaken sky with thisDecisive dearth is not enough to placateAlleviate our loneliness as probe-missilesOut-limbing him with love for his ice-creamHat and hacked-off head, the holo-guillotineHoning itself against any lack of descentFrom that arcade's space capsule, or AnneSexton painting the shade carbon monoxideTints skin with in your car's career, cherry sword,Aureoled revolt upon the shocktuft tree:That she, the acrobat, should fear that sphereOf fire would seem synonymous with our ownHesitance, but can that figure sustain its groundUp there in transient facticity, thatMatchstick myth mourned by all, mute-hymnedTo the core. In Summer harvest the hungFruits manifest spirit, flesh hangs from an idealWheel flung and clinging to air's a-leaf wombAtmosphere toppling at hand. How nearIt roams its round of annihilated creationEmanating from the central outcast spun;Can the burning child awaken the fatherIn time to be rescued or will he too grow oldAgainst vigilance. Or must he watch overThis oval cremation where the wind's kinksWither infancy's summation, trender towardSpurious apparitions, godmaze stalled in someCorrupt word preferred to those I might throw;Any furtive shadow my launchpad had.